


'cause she adores you

by orphan_account



Series: love it if we made it [2]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, like always this is very soft, there is an injury in this story but it's not permanent, working through jealousy! like mature adults!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23552503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lindsey learns how to not be jealous.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Emily Sonnett, Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Series: love it if we made it [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695145
Comments: 11
Kudos: 188





	'cause she adores you

**Author's Note:**

> this series exists in a very fun universe where the coronavirus does not exist so that's why there's nothing about that in here

Lindsey doesn’t want to hate Kelley.

She doesn’t even hate her. Really. Seriously. She loves Kelley — loves her bear hugs, her bad jokes, her ability to quietly reaffirm any teammate whenever their confidence wavers. It’s kind of impossible _not_ to love Kelley. She’s one of the warm, bubbly anchors that their entire team revolves around. She’s a fiercely loyal friend, the necessary connector between the new kids and the veterans. Her friends love Kelley. Lindsey loves Kelley.

But she loves Emily more. And as much as she loves their communication, the way they talk about _everything_ , a tiny, angry, immature part of her wishes Emily had never told her that she used to sleep with Kelley.

It was just three times, she said. Not even enough to call a habit. Emily swore it was never emotional, that it was a thing they did as a distraction, and that made her feel better. A little. Not really at all.

Lindsey is fine. She’s good. They’re good. It’s just—

It’s just that she can’t get the image out of her head.

Every time she sees Kelley’s hands on Emily, a quick pat on the shoulder or a warm hug when they’ve gone a few weeks without seeing each other. Every time they laugh over an inside joke. Every time her name lights up Emily’s phone screen.

And it’s stupid.

Mainly it’s stupid because Emily clearly _doesn’t_ have feelings for Kelley. She ignores those texts when she and Lindsey are at dinner, flips her phone over or sticks it in her back pocket so it won’t distract either of them. She’s always quick to seek Lindsey out when they’re with their friends, even if Lindsey is fully engaged in a conversation with someone else, tucking herself into her side and pressing a soft, reassuring hand to her knee or her back. She’s so open with her affection, more than Lindsey had even expected — it’s hard to go even a day without making some sort of cameo on the Instagram story reserved for Emily’s close friends, often with slightly obnoxious little gifs positioned around Lindsey’s face.

So Lindsey bites it back, because it’s too much and too unfair, and because Emily deserves so much better than these random spikes of jealousy.

But still.

***

Emily doesn’t notice anything until their off day at May camp. They had plans to explore the city, but then it stormed all day and a whole gang of them ended up ordering in Mediterranean food to Rose’s hotel room and no one would leave her pita and hummus alone. Like, no one.

And then Sam asked the question.

“So does this mean you guys are going to like—“ Sam gestures a little wildly, her hand unknowingly swerving inches away from Emily’s face, and she ducks, laughing into Lindsey’s shoulder. “Get invited to the gay mafia?”

“There is no such thing as the gay mafia.” Lindsey grabs another piece of pita and Emily kicks at her calf lightly, but she lets her take another massive glob of hummus. “Right?”

Lindsey steals a glance at both Emily and Kelley — she’s been out as bisexual for years, but she hasn’t exactly been a _practicing_ bisexual and her face betrays a slight fear of having missed something. It’s enough to send both Emily and Kelley into another fit of laughter, forcing both Sam and Lindsey to roll their eyes and hide their own smiles.

“No, guys—“ Mal plop down on Lindsey’s side, reaches over and grabs her own piece of pita. Emily doles out another kick, this time a little harder. “She means Pinoe and Tobin and all them.”

“Oh.” They both pause.

Emily glances at Lindsey. She’d never really thought about _that_ before. The two other couples on the team did make up a small gang of sorts on the team — the four of them plus Rapinoe spend almost all of their off time together, and they show up for each other both on and off the field. Tobin and Christen have certainly come through for Lindsey and Emily, and Ali and Ashlyn are now two of the most important people in Emily’s life when it comes to soccer. But something about the five of them — six when Sue is around — always feels a little untouchable.

“I don’t think we’d even qualify for that, right?” Lindsey scrunches her nose up, and Emily fights down the urge to kiss the slight crinkle at the bridge of her nose. “I feel like that’s based on the fact that they’re veterans as much as anything.”

“Yeah we’re not like—“ Emily is at a loss for words, but her following hand gesture tugs a barking laugh out of Sam. “—cool, hip fashion people.”

“Can you imagine us—“ Lindsey is leaning into her, laughing now. “—all at one of those fashion shows with them? Like, Tobin and Sue and all of them in some limited edition kicks and Ali and Christen and Ash in, like, get-ups that cost thousands of dollars and then it’s just me and Sonny—“

“I would be in _shorts_ —“ Emily gets a grin out of Mal. “Like, I would be in the corner trying to dance—“

“You guys don’t clean up _that_ bad—“ Rose starts, but Lindsey and Emily are on a roll at this point, egging each other on. When they finally come down from it, Mal is watching them appraisingly.

“It’s not, like, all about the fashion and stuff.” Mal’s eyes narrow. “You guys kind of fit the mold.”

“Mal, I appreciate the compliment, but no we absolutely do not.” Emily gestures between the two of them, and Lindsey drops her head onto her shoulder. “Like, not in the slightest.”

“We’re cute, but we’re weird,” Lindsey says sagely, and Emily nods, this time fighting down the urge to press a kiss into her hair. “Not their brand of weird.”

“Okay yeah you’re not as cool as them—“ Lindsey and Emily both offer affronted noises at that, but Mal powers through it. “— but it’s more, like, you’re the same type of couple as both of them.”

“How?” Emily isn’t even _trying_ to argue that hard. She’s genuinely flattered that anyone would compare herself and her own relationship with some of the most successful and overall _cool_ people she’s ever known, but she’s not going to let onto that. It’s too early to be that genuine.

“Just this thing Tobin said.” Mal goes a little pink when she says it, her voice dropping into a mutter. “Just— trust me, you guys fit it.”

Now _that’s_ enough to get them all to bite.

“Mal.” Rose leans forward, plants her chin onto both hands. “Mallory. My sweet baby Mal.”

“Shut up.” The color intensifies, which only makes Rose lean in closer. “I regret bringing it up already.”

“Mallory.” Lindsey lifts her head off Emily's shoulder and she can feel the way she’s gone on alert, and glancing over to see a certain amount of glee in her eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s a sex thing, right?” Kelley has that look on her face, the one that always makes Emily want to throw something at her. “It’s definitely a sex thing.”

“How would _Tobin_ know if it was a sex thing?” Lindsey should be defensive but she just sounds— excited isn’t the right word, but it’s hard to place the exact kind of energy she’s emanating as she nudges Mal’s leg. “I don’t think she’s an expert on our sex lives.”

“It’s not like _entirely_ a sex thing.” Mal sounds defeated.

“Please just tell us,” Emily says, not entirely used to being the voice of reason in any given scenario. “It’s easier that way, you know it.”

Mal looks back and forth between them — Lindsey’s raised eyebrows, Kelley’s manic grin, Rose leaning even closer, her nose just inches from Mal’s shoulder — and sighs.

“Fine.” She looks almost mournful. “Tobin said that all of them have, like, one person who’s super Type A and focused on planning and the future, and then one person who’s really spontaneous and focused on the present, and they balance each other out. That’s why they all work as friends.”

“Okay.” Emily drags the word out, unsure why Mal dragged her feet just to say something this innocent. “I mean, that fits.” 

“Does it?” Sam leans back, cocking her head slightly, and Lindsey rolls her eyes as the group turns its focus back to herself and Lindsey.

“Have you met them?” Now _Rose_ leans over to grab a piece of pita. “Lindsey is all forward thinking and Emily barely thinks past the next meal.” 

“Hey—“ Emily gets a half-hearted noise of protest out, but she doesn’t offer anything more. Their friends inspect them for a moment longer.

“Okay, yeah, that tracks,” Sam says, and Kelley nods along wisely.

“I don’t get it, why is that bad?” Rose says, her mouth half-full of bread. “Mal, what’s the sex part?”

“Why does there have to be a sex part?” Emily cuts it off quickly because she doesn’t want to talk about _that_ , especially because the last time she got a little too drunk she accidentally told Rose something about a specific part of her kitchen that caused her best friend to lock her out of their hotel room for 15 minutes.

“Because she already _told_ us there was a sex part,” Rose says matter of factly, tugging both knees up to her chest. 

“I plead the fifth.” Mal holds up both hands, but she _has_ to know she’s fighting a losing battle.

“You can only do that if you’re incriminating yourself,” Sam says, jabbing a finger at her.

“Can we just—“

“I want to hear—“

The room descends momentarily into a slight cacophony of argumentation, and then finally Mal plants both hands over her face.

“ _Allofthemaretops_.”

The words come out in a single rush of air, so quick in succession that it takes a moment for everyone in the room to decipher them.

“Oh.” Rose’s eyebrows shoot straight up towards the ceiling, so quick Emily’s surprised they don’t just fly right off.

“Well then.” Sam looks mildly amused at worst, not even half as disgusted as she normally would be by this kind of conversation.

“That tracks,” Kelley says with a shrug.

“So if all of them are tops, who, like, wins out?” Lindsey has her head tipped to one side, as if she’s asking a tactical question at training.

“Wins—“ Mal starts, but Lindsey cuts her off immediately.

“You know what I mean.” It’s rare for Lindsey to get like this — a little intense, a little scary — but when she does it’s nearly impossible to turn her attention.

“Um, well, Tobin said—“

“Why did she _tell_ you this?” Sam’s voice is almost mournful.

“Why did she tell _you_ this?” Kelley, meanwhile, appears affronted.

“She overshares when she’s drunk, you all know this.”

Emily feels bad for Mal at this point — she’s got her head buried in her forearms, and she’s gone pink up to the tips of her ears. She feels a little worse for herself, because either her friends have correctly figured out a crucial aspect of her relationship with her best friend or they’ve guessed entirely wrong, and either option feels deeply mortifying. She sort of wishes that Mal would just combust on the spot, because this was the one part of having all of her friends know about her relationship that she had been dreading.

But Mal is strong and brave and, eventually, lifts her head. Emily braces for the storm that is bound to follow.

“Uh, she said, uh, I guess it’s always the one that’s Type A.” Mal pointedly avoids any eye contact. “Like, that’s why they’re all basically the same couple.”

Emily’s face scrunches up as she tries her best not to puzzle _that_ out. (Ali makes sense to her, but Christen— well, actually that makes sense, too.) She takes too long to think about not thinking about it before realizing that all eyes in the room have turned on _her_ now, flitting back and forth between herself and Lindsey. At the realization, Emily’s face flushes red.

“Alright.” Kelley grins wolfishly. “Atta girl, Lindsey.”

She turns toward Lindsey, hoping to hide the way her entire body is turning red, only to see that her girlfriend is ineffectively biting back a grin of her own. She’s almost inflating with visible pride, tucking her chin down into her hoodie when she sees Emily looking at her. Emily tries not to read too much into that — or into the way Lindsey’s eyes keep flicking back to Kelley, one hand sneaking down to make a quick, possessive squeeze to her knee — and drops her eyes back to the floor.

“Shut up.” 

Emily mutters it, and the whole room explodes in laughter.

They brushed it off. Lindsey refused to confirm or deny anything — although the huge grin on her face belied the truth immediately — and after several rounds of awkward jokes and uncomfortable laughter they all were forced to move on. 

Plus — they were at camp. They were at camp, which meant no girlfriends and definitely no sex, and after their first four camps together Lindsey and Emily had figured out a routine to keep everything professional while they were focused on the national team.

This was something of a necessity, because they appeared to have the worst possible luck with getting walked in on, worse than anything even Ali and Ashlyn or Tobin and Christen had encountered. At first it was sort of funny — Abby walked in on them kissing at their first camp together, and then Alyssa got surprisingly flustered upon finding them fully clothed but slightly intertwined while watching Netflix together one night. They didn’t mind the puking noises Rose and Mal made when they kissed in front of their friends — which was rare, normally just a quick press of the lips to the cheek or forehead — and it still retained a certain level of amusement even when Alex barged into their room unannounced and turned on her heel when she encountered a shirtless Emily Sonnett.

The make-or-break moment came at the end of September camp. In hindsight, Emily _still_ feels like she had a good defense — it was the last night of camp, all national team duties were officially completed and Julie had already left for an early flight home. Everything about it felt safe and above board, which is why she wasn’t checking her phone when Julie’s flight was delayed until the next morning, and why she wasn’t expecting it when Julie walked in with her suitcase and takeout in hand, her bad mood quickly turning worse when she was forced to stand in the bathroom while Emily and Lindsey scrambled to get dressed.

“No girlfriends at camp.” Julie wasn’t exactly the person you wanted to piss off. “None. That’s the rule. I know you guys are in the honeymoon period—“

“Camp is over,” Lindsey said weakly, and she immediately shrank under Julie’s gaze. “Sorry.”

“If U.S. Soccer is paying for the hotel room, then you don’t get to—“ she gestured at the bed, which was incredibly wrecked.

“We’re sorry.” Emily had tugged her into a hug, and that had been enough to calm Julie for the night. But they hadn’t even made out at a camp since then, terrified that their bad luck would bring a teammate into the room the second they kissed.

This ended up being fine by both of them. They became increasingly disciplined. It was smart. It was mature. It was in everybody’s best interest.

And now, after months of acting like goddamn grownups, Lindsey — suddenly, for absolutely no reason — wasn’t following it at all.

She slipped a hand to the small of Emily’s back, intertwined their fingers on the bus ride to training, pressed her fingers into her thigh just a little too high during team dinner. 

None of it was quite blatant enough to force Emily to say anything. She knew Lindsey well enough to know something was off, but she couldn’t place it and she didn’t want to disrupt them in the middle of camp. Besides, Lindsey didn’t seem upset, just — just _different_. A little touchy. A little possessive. 

And then Lindsey pulls them into the hall leading down to the kitchen at the restaurant for their send-off dinner, a standard procedure for any national team camp. It’s a little too nice of a place for Lindsey to press her up against the wall, a little too classy for Emily to feel entirely comfortable with the angle her leg rests at where it’s slotted in between her thighs.

“Linds?” She probably should be embarrassed at the way her voice comes out, all breathy and feminine and needy. But hey, she’s human, and Lindsey’s been making this whole hands-off policy a lot harder to sit with this camp. “You good?”

Her response comes in the form of actions rather than words, Lindsey digging her fingers into Emily’s hipbone and dropping her mouth to chase any further option of talking away with a kiss to her clavicle.

“Mmhm.” 

That’s all she gets, and then Lindsey’s mouth is tracing back up and Emily has to fight to keep her back pressed against the wall, to beat back the urge to let her hips buck forward into the contact. She lets it go on for a minute, but then Lindsey ducks her head even further and it fills Emily with a flush that should be embarrassment but decidedly _isn’t_ , and just as she’s about to protest that they should head back to their table the door to the kitchen swings open.

Emily doesn’t think, just shoves Lindsey back away from her, and she feels a little guilty when her back hits the wall on the opposite side of the hall. For his credit, the waiter doesn’t even seem to notice, too focused on managing the armful of plates he’s loaded up with as he squeezes by the two of them. She glances back at Lindsey, ready to apologize, but she’s stopped still by the look in her eyes.

There’s a slight edge to the way she’s watching Emily, something foreign under the obvious heat of attraction that she’s grown accustomed to seeing whenever they’re interrupted like this. It makes her hesitate for a second, fidgeting under the way Lindsey’s watching her, but then the moment breaks and Lindsey smiles, soft and warm and all-consuming.

“I love you, you know that?” The way Lindsey can reach forward, wrapping hand around her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her forehead with the same lips that had Emily gasping seconds before, is nothing short of a miracle. “Hate this whole distance thing.”

“Me too.” Emily presses her face into Lindsey’s shirt, tucking her nose in as close as she can, breathing in and wishing she could preserve this moment just a bit longer. “You have no idea.”

***

Lindsey doesn’t know why, but it helps a little. Not enough, but a little.

It’s not like she talks to people about her sex life. In fact, she’d rather sprout two heads than talk about her sex life with most of her friends. Particularly Kelley.

But something in those few seconds — the look of surprise that bloomed across Kelley’s features, the calculated way she grinned as she looked Lindsey over — bolsters her slightly. That there was something about Emily, something intimate like this, that Kelley _didn’t_ know. That she can have control over this, over something Kelley can’t.

Still, this thing won’t go away, no matter how much she wants to make it leave. It’s stupid. It’s possessive. It’s definitely unhealthy. And Lindsey begins to realize that she’s going to have to talk to _someone_ about it, because this ugly feeling in her stomach whenever she thinks about Kelley — or, more, when she thinks about Kelley and Emily — isn’t going away.

Eventually it boils over, and she’s forced to talk to the person who apparently has become her touchstone for talking all of these things over — Tobin. Lindsey ends up letting it all boil over, breaking down on a random coffee run on a Wednesday without a morning training.

“So Kelley and Christen slept together, right?”

Okay, so maybe it’s not the best start.

Tobin chokes on her coffee. Like, actually inhales it down the wrong pipe, then doubles over coughing, forcing Lindsey to awkwardly rub between her shoulder blades as she hacks away for several seconds before sitting up again.

“Dude.” She wipes her mouth, glaring lightly at Lindsey. “What the hell.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just— that’s a thing, right?” Lindsey knows she does thing when she’s nervous, where she focuses in too hard and doesn’t let herself lighten up to show any emotion. She can feel herself doing it now, but everything about this topic always feels just a little bit out of control and she’s not quite sure how to stop herself.

Tobin, to her credit, doesn’t seem to mind, running her hand absently through her hair.

“Yeah.” Her mouth twitches up, that little expression that always reflects a certain disinterest. “During college for awhile, and then off and on for a bit leading up to Brazil.”

“Wait, what?” Whenever Lindsey had heard about Kelley and Christen it had always been painted as ancient history, something neither of them longed for or regretted. “That recently?”

“Yeah, I uh—“ Tobin coughs, clearing her throat for the final time. “Christen was really strung out and I was being an ass about committing and it just kind of happened.”

She shrugs good-naturedly, and once again Lindsey longs for the level of complete comfort that Tobin seems to achieve at all times.

“And you were okay with that?” She’s surprised when Tobin laughs, a little loudly.

“Dude, no.” Her face scrunches up as she looks at Lindsey, as if she’s almost amused that she’d even suggest the idea. “I mean— look, you know how much I love Christen. And the idea that someone else could take care of her, it just— like that gave me the kick in the ass I needed, you know?”

Tobin’s mouth twitches up into a slight smirk, but Lindsey is too dumbfounded to do anything but study her features. The idea of Tobin being jealous is so foreign, so unnatural. She almost wishes she could’ve been there to see it.

“Kelley still swears she only did it as a favor to me,” Tobin adds, rolling her eyes, and Lindsey has to laugh if only because of _course_ Kelley said that. 

“So how—“ Lindsey feels small and awkward. “How did you get over that? Like, you and Kelley are so close now. Do you still—“

“No.” Tobin cuts her off, and Lindsey is thankful for it — she was rambling, stumbling over her own words. “I think even at the time, I wasn’t really jealous of _Kelley_. I was just angry at myself, you know? For all the time I wasted waiting to get the guts up to go for Christen. Like, I could’ve had her and I just sat on my hands waiting for ages and, like, honestly thank _God_ it was Kelley who was the one filling my spot or I might not have ever gotten her back.” 

“What do you mean?” Lindsey loves when Tobin talks like this — low and direct and earnest. She only talks this way about three things — football, Christen and Jesus — and in her personal opinion it’s the best side of her friend.

“Like— Kelley knows how to keep herself from falling in love, especially with her friends and _especially_ with her teammates.” Tobin hesitates for a second before continuing. “She fell really hard once, awhile ago, and when it ended it was bad. Like, it was just— it was bad. So she doesn’t do that anymore. But honestly, she cares so much about all of us and when she, you know, when she’s intimate with people I think you just, like, you feel how much she cares—“

Lindsey notices it, suddenly — the way Tobin’s chin is dipping, the way her words begin to falter — and it clicks a second later.

“Oh my God.” Tobin looks up sheepishly, as if she’s already seen the truth reflected back at her on Lindsey’s face. “Tobin— did you sleep with her, too?”

“In my defense—“ That’s all she gets out before Lindsey bursts out laughing, partially in frustration and mostly at the pure _hilarity_ of all of it. “I had just missed a penalty kick and I was very young, very drunk and very stupid.”

“Jesus.” 

Lindsey doesn’t know how to feel — something irrational that tastes like a mix between anger and betrayal is rushing through her — so she keeps laughing.

“Look.” Tobin grabs her wrist to cut her off. “Emily loves you. And if she— when she went to Kelley in the past, it was for comfort. I can promise you that. It’s nothing more.”

“She _adores_ her,” Lindsey mutters, and it’s the first time she’s said it, the first time she’s acknowledged this whole thing out loud, and she hates how childish it sounds in her ears.

“Yeah, I mean, you adore me.” Tobin doesn’t say it flippantly, and Lindsey bites back a joke because it’s true. She does adore Tobin. “I think mutual adoration is kind of what makes this team go around, right?”

“I haven’t slept with you.” Lindsey sounds petulant, and she’s filled with a rush of gratitude when Tobin doesn’t call her out on it, just raises her eyebrows in amusement.

“You wish.” They both smirk at each other for a moment, and Tobin softens again. “I can tell you, without a doubt, that kissing you for the first time meant more romantically to Sonnett than anything she’s ever done with Kelley.”

Lindsey’s mouth is already open to ask _how_ she knows that, but Tobin cuts her off.

“You forget that I was there when Sonnett decided to go for things with you.” Tobin’s hand is firm on her wrist. “She’s crazy about you. You’ve gotta let this thing go.”

Lindsey knows. She knows she has to squash this, knows she needs to force it away. It becomes a puzzle, a fixation. She’s used to being able to solve any problem before her, used to setting goals and accomplishing them. It’s never easy to do those things — it takes effort and practice and insistent focus — but Lindsey is used to being able to fix things.

She can’t fix this. 

In the end, she doesn’t fix it for another month. If she’s being honest, in the end _she_ doesn’t even fix it. A rain delay and an ambulance do it for her.

(And, if she’s being even more honest, Kelley does a lot of the fixing, too.)

It’s a weird day of game scheduling to begin with, at least for Lindsey and Emily — they’ve flipped coasts, with the Thorns playing Sky Blue FC in New Jersey and Orlando playing in Utah. Lindsey had been somewhat dreading this weekend, mainly because of the looming image of Kelley and Emily inevitably going out for drinks or dinner or breakfast or _whatever_ they’d do afterwards. 

Her one saving grace was the knowledge that there’d be a buffer — Ali Riley’s move to the Pride would mean Kelley would be more eager, for once, to see her than Emily, and there were enough old reunions between the two teams to keep the two of them being alone together. (And yes, Lindsey knew it was petty, but repeating these things to herself was the only thing keeping her from checking Emily’s location like an _actual_ psychopath.)

Things get weirder with the rain. Portland was already set to play first, with the Orlando game following immediately on its heels on an ESPN broadcast, but Lindsey feels selfishly grateful when a surprise deluge minutes before kickoff in Salt Lake City delays Emily’s game until well after the Thorns had finished post-game media and meetings. They relocate to the sports bar in the lobby of the hotel, still a little overeager to watch an NWSL game on ESPN, crowding around a table with their hair still wet from the shower.

The food comes around the 25th minute, and by the time Orlando gets a 1-0 lead in the 79th minute only a few of them are fully watching the game — Tobin and Lindsey for obvious reasons, Christine and Becky because they’re always watching _any_ game that’s put in front of them. It’s been a long night and half of them are barely awake enough to stay upright in their chairs, so they don’t all see it when it happens.

Emily flies in like she always does — reckless, heedless, just a touch desperate to prove herself. The collision is audible even on the broadcast, even above the idle dinner chatter. In the moments after, Lindsey tells herself it’s just a trick of the camera. She tells herself that there was no need for Becky to suck in her breath that sharply, no reason for Tobin to reach out and place a gentle hand on her shoulder. There’s no reason, there’s absolutely no—

There’s no reason Emily shouldn’t be getting up.

Lindsey watches it all in a sort of cliched blur.

Ali and Ashlyn both fly in from opposite sides of the box, dropping to their knees. Ali leans over Emily’s shoulders and Ashlyn places a gloved hand on her back and their bodies obscure most of Emily’s body, almost all of her except for her cleats, which lay perfectly still.

She shouldn’t be limp like that.

It’s somewhat chaotic on the field. Kelley sprints in from the corner, Ali Riley catching her by the biceps and holding her back, steering her away and off frame. Marc is on the field before the referee even gestures that it’s okay for trainers to come out to Emily, and he beats the entire medical staff there, Ali and Ashlyn inching apart to let him in between the two of them. Eventually Ali and Ashlyn have to stand and clear away entirely.

Lindsey only watches Emily. Her hand has somehow found Tobin’s, her nails digging in hard enough to break skin. Marc touches the back of Emily’s neck and a member of the medical staff touches her side and suddenly—

Emily flops over on her side, and her face is screwed up in pain, but she throws an arm over her face and she’s _moving_ and Lindsey remembers how to breathe again.

She swears she doesn’t blink for the next ten minutes. Not when they slowly load Emily onto the stretcher; not when Ali and Ashlyn and Kelley and Alex pat her on the shoulder; not when she makes a show of wiggling her feet and holding up a thumb for benefit of the fans.

“Okay, let’s go.” Lindsey isn’t surprised when Christine takes the lead, but she is surprised when she looks over to see Becky, slumped small and absolutely stricken in her chair. 

Christine herds all three of them into the elevator and then into a hotel room that Emily vaguely recognizes as her own. She can’t keep herself from refreshing her Twitter feed for updates, can’t resist sending text after text that remains unanswered.

_Hi I love you I’m here for you please let me know if you’re okay_

_I love you so goddamn much_

_I’m looking up flights I’ll be there as soon as I can_

Eventually Christine takes her phone for her, forcing Lindsey to lay there on her side and _wait_.

It takes almost 45 minutes, but finally her phone buzzes, Lindsey snatching it from Christine’s hands so quickly that the motion would be embarrassing under any other circumstance.

“Linds— hi, fuck, I’m sorry this took so long.” Kelley’s voice is reedy in her ear, a touch shrill. “Christen had to do the presser but she’s driving me now, we’ll be at the hospital in 15 and we’ll stay on the line the whole time, I promise.” 

“Christen’s there too?” Lindsey swallows her disappointment that it's not Emily on the other line, switching to speakerphone as Tobin visibly perks up at Christen's name, scooting closer on the bed.

“Yeah, she’s— hold on, fuck—“ There’s a muffled noise, and then the line shifts and Lindsey can hear the clicking of a car’s turn signal. “We’re driving there right now.”

“Lindsey, are you okay?” Christen’s voice is always so soft, so gentle, and in this moment it’s almost enough to make Lindsey cry. “She’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“What the fuck happened?” She hates how her voice cracks, shoving her fist up towards her mouth and biting down on a knuckle. “Is she—“

“She got knocked out but she’s going to be fine, I promise you,” Kelley says. “She could move everything fine, she was breathing fine. She seemed okay, honestly, they just had to take her because she—“

The rest seems to be drowned out by a rush of rage, loud and angry and stupid and _real_ in Lindsey’s ears. She wants to scream at Kelley, wants to say there’s no way to _know_ that, wants to curse her because she should be the one on the way to the hospital, because she shouldn’t be two fucking time zones away.

Tobin takes the phone from her, asking the smart, rational questions that should be asked in this moment, and Lindsey sits and stares at her hands and tries to scrub away the image of Emily limp on her stomach.

Christen and Kelley get to the hospital and Lindsey resents the idle chatter, the dumb jokes Kelley keeps trying to crack to cheer her up.

“Linds, the doctor’s gonna talk to us now, we’ll call you okay?” Kelley says, and Lindsey resents that even more, resents that she’s not the one there to hear the news firsthand.

“Hey.” Tobin puts a hand on her ankle and it’s like she can see right through Lindsey, and maybe she can. She goes to rub her face and it’s wet and she’s not sure why for a moment, realizing retroactively that she hasn’t stopped crying since she sat down. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Somehow, Tobin coaxes her onto her side, and Lindsey curls in tightly, pressing her face blankly into the pillow. The heaviness of all of it suddenly settles onto her chest, and when she closes her eyes she feels as if she’s sinking into the bed, the reality of the night slowly pressing into her — it’s midnight and she played a full 90 and she’s not sure if she can take another minute of this.

Lindsey doesn’t realize she’s drifting off until Tobin suddenly shakes her shoulder, pulling her back upright and pressing her phone into her hand, the screen lit up with Kelley’s face.

“You look like shit.” Lindsey blurts it out without thinking — Kelley’s hair is still pulled back for the game and it’s all fucked up, and she’s pretty sure she’s bleeding from her bottom lip where she always gnaws at it from anxiety. For a second she feels bad, but then Kelley laughs, the smile lighting up her face all the way to her eyes.

“Right back at you, kid.” Kelley adjusts her headphones, glancing over her shoulder. “I thought this would be better, I think I can take you into her in a second and I wanted to make sure you were all set up and okay before they let guests in.”

It’s so pragmatic and soft and earnest and goddamn it, it’s so _Kelley_.

The warmth of it floods Lindsey, and she’s not sure why, but she’s suddenly a second away from crying again.

“Kell—“ Lindsey barely chokes it out, then coughs and starts again. “Thank you for doing this—“

“Of course.” Kelley cuts her off, shaking her head. “Dude I’m just so sorry this happened, it was such a bad challenge—“

“It’s not your fault—“

“—and I think she should’ve gotten a red for it, I could hardly get through the rest of that game—“

“Kelley.”

“Sorry.” Kelley looks sheepish. “Most important thing is that she’s okay. A bit concussed, super shaken up, but good. Nothing broken, nothing too banged up. She’ll be under concussion protocol for a few weeks and then hopefully she’ll be alright.”

Lindsey nods, letting Kelley talk her through the other details the doctor had relayed to her — she had suggested changes to the Pride travel routine to accommodate the concussion, and Ali was going to stay in bed with her that night to keep an eye on her breathing in case anything changed. Lindsey could hear someone — the accent sounds Australian, and Lindsey wonders if it’s Alanna — make a joke about that offscreen, and Kelley rolls her eyes.

“You gotta look at this, it’s like a fucking party in here,” she says, flipping the camera view around, and Lindsey is suddenly greeted with a full room of players in purple and grey sweats — Ali and Ashlyn framing Christen on one side of the room, Alanna sprawled out on the floor, Marc with his elbows on his knees and his brow furrowed anxiously, a handful of girls Lindsey still doesn’t entirely recognize outside of the film room bunched up in the corner.

“Your girl is well loved,” Kelley says as she turns the camera around, and something curls up in Lindsey’s chest at her wording.

“Kell.” Lindsey hears Christen’s voice, tugging Kelley’s attention somewhere offscreen for a moment, and then there’s a small smile on her lips as she looks back.

“Okay Linds,” she says, tugging out one earbud. “They said she can take visitors now so I’m gonna give you to her doc, alright?”

“You can just go in with me,” Lindsey says, confused, but Kelley shakes her head.

“Nah, you should be the first one to talk to her.” 

Kelley’s voice is soft, encouraging, and that’s the moment Lindsey breaks.

She doesn’t say anything, _can’t_ say anything, because the past few months of envy and resentment and stupidity are crashing down on her and she’s not sure she’ll be able to find anything intelligible to say to Kelley except for an apology she wouldn’t fully understand.

So she stays quiet as Kelley hands the phone to someone else, the view on the screen suddenly blurring slightly, reflecting the ceiling of the hospital. For their part, Becky and Tobin and Christine clear out, leaving Lindsey alone in the room with the phone cradled in her hands. Then the image on the screen snaps back into focus, and Emily’s face is filling up the frame, a little too close. Her smile is sleepy and she looks a little pale under the harshness of the hospital lights, but she’s _there_ and she’s okay and that’s all Lindsey can focus on.

“Hey.” That little soft smile fills Emily’s features. “Nice win today.”

Lindsey laughs, and then she’s crying again, rubbing angrily at her eyes because she _doesn’t_ need this right now.

“Are you okay?” Her words rush out, tumbling anxiously before she can control them. “I was so worried, I just— you weren’t moving and I saw the stretcher and it took so long to talk to you and Kelley said you were knocked out and it’s—“

“Baby.” For all her softness, Emily never says that, never really got into the habit of nicknames, but now it calms Lindsey immediately. “I’m here, I’m okay. I promise.”

They talk for nearly half an hour, but to Lindsey it feels like only a few minutes before Emily looks up over the screen, then warns Emily that Christen is forcing an entrance. She stays on the line while Christen and Emily visit, then with Ali and Ashlyn, then with a whole horde of Pride players and coaches. Lindsey greedily wishes she could take Emily back for just herself, wishes she could fly to Salt Lake and crawl into Emily’s bed and wrap her in her arms and never let go, but she lets herself be comforted by the way Emily rags on her teammates, the way she keeps glancing back at Kelley’s phone and crooking a sloppy little smile that’s private, meant just for the two of them. 

In the end, Kelley is the one to convince Lindsey that she can’t fly out to Orlando. She’s also the one who gets Emily’s doctor on the phone, explaining to Lindsey that she’ll be perfectly fine in a few weeks, and she gets her to go to sleep when it’s well past 2 a.m. and Lindsey’s exhaustion has become evident.

“Kelley—“ Lindsey holds her back a moment before they finally end the call, Tobin already asleep on one side of her and Becky shuffling around the room, apparently preparing to take up residence on the other side of the bed. “Thank you for this. Seriously.”

“Lindsey, of course.” Her tone is earnest and Lindsey hates herself for ever doubting that this was okay, that this would always be okay between the three of them. “I love you so much, okay?”

“Love you too, Kell,” she says it sheepishly, but Kelley doesn’t seem to notice.

“Get some sleep kid.” Kelley yawns. “This will all be okay in the morning.”

***

It is all okay, in the end.

Emily misses the rest of the regular season on concussion protocol, but she’s back for the semifinal match against Reign FC. She stays in Portland for a full five days when the Pride comes to play the next month, and Lindsey brings her flowers at the airport and takes her out to eat at all their favorite restaurants and ends up being late to three out of the four training sessions that week to steal a few more minutes in bed.

After their first three days apart again, Emily sends her a playlist and then Lindsey sends her another back, and they spend the remaining weeks of the season swapping music and staying up past their trainer-prescribed bedtimes to FaceTime. 

One day, Lindsey jokingly suggests getting herself traded to Orlando, and Emily screws her face up immediately.

“You can’t take away my only good excuse to wear Thorns gear,” she mutters, and Lindsey laughs at that, dropping the rose-tinted daydream of playing on the same team again.

The end of the season comes as something of a relief — after back-to-back summers of international tournaments and back-to-back semifinal losses, Lindsey _needs_ a month of relief. So when Kelley suggests a trip — five days in Hawaii with a larger group — Lindsey doesn’t even hesitate before agreeing.

And that’s another thing — somehow, out of nowhere, her friendship with Kelley had taken on a life of its own.

It started during the 24 hours following Emily’s concussion. Even after their hours-long call ended, Kelley kept texting updates on Emily up until the moment she got onto the plane. At that point, Lindsey had somehow begun to feel comfort every time she saw Kelley’s name light up her phone, so it seemed natural to text her the next morning, just something dumb about training. It was even more natural when Kelley sent her a video of herself trying — and, of course, failing — to do the latest Tik Tok video that Rose and Emily and Sam were hooked on. When Kelley made a group chat for just the three of them a week later — naming it ‘The Tricycle’ just to annoy Emily, who refused to hear complaints about third wheeling — everything seemed to slot fully into place.

So when Kelley texts them about going on vacation together, Lindsey is the first to say yes, knowing what Emily’s answer will be immediately.

It ends up being the best decision she could’ve made. It’s a good group that’s already fairly tight knit despite how odd it might seem from the outside — Lindsey and Emily, Kelley, Ali and Ashlyn, Tobin and Christen, Alyssa, Becky — and it’s a group that makes Lindsey feel a little older, a little more mature than she normally does. They spend mornings surfing or learning to surf, stretching out for long hours on the beach to read and sleep, eating obnoxiously large amounts of food each night.

Tobin has Emily in her third surf lesson one morning while Lindsey watches from shore, trying to beat Ashlyn at just one card game as Becky taunts both of them without even looking up from her book. Kelley jogs up from the water, peeling her wetsuit down to her waist.

“Dude, watch it, you’re dripping—“ Lindsey regrets the words immediately, because Kelley looks up and grins maniacally, whipping her hair around to send a small curtain of water flying in her direction.

“Kelley Maureen—“ Becky’s face is aghast as she ducks out of the way, blocking her book with her body. “I swear one of these days—“

“You love me,” Kelley beams, flopping down into a chair and wringing out her hair. Becky coughs disapprovingly before turning back to her book, but she’s smiling, too.

It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Lindsey leans into it. Kelley is humming something under her breath, and Ashlyn must hear it, because she hops up after a minute to grab the portable speaker out of her room.

Lindsey watches Emily and Tobin, or more honestly she watches Emily — the way she flops dramatically onto her board after getting bowled over by a wave, how she bites her lip in concentration when Tobin tries to explain something, gesturing a little wildly with her hands. She’s not bad at surfing. She’ll probably be good at it, soon. Emily’s never just “not bad” at anything for long.

“You’re the best thing that could happen to her.” Kelley’s voice does this weird thing when she gets serious, dropping half an octave, turning a little gravelly. It does that right now, and Lindsey’s stomach flips at it. “I hope you know that.”

“She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lindsey responds quietly, digging her toes deeper into the sand.

She chances a glance at Kelley, and their eyes catch on each other. Kelley smiles — huge and toothy — and she’s still beaming at her like that when she reaches out, looping an arm around the back of Lindsey’s neck and tugging her into a hug that’s as much a headlock as anything else.

Hours pass and they’re all lying on their stomachs on a beach they found at the end of a hike, a largely unsuccessful hike thanks to some shoddy navigating from Emily and a completely distracting argument about tofu between Alyssa, Ali and Christen. 

It was all on track to become the first negative experience of the trip, and then they turned a corner and were standing face-to-face with one of those sweeping cliff-side vistas of the Hawaiian coast that normally graces travel Instagrams and laptop backgrounds.

“Fuck,” Ashlyn said, and Tobin repeated it in agreement, and then they were scrambling down a lightly defined trail to get to the sand.

Now, as they lie side by side and watch the waves crash into the shore, they’re quiet and content, a rare form of serenity that Lindsey rarely sees in her friends and always cherishes.

Lindsey turns towards Emily, who looks a half-second away from falling asleep, and she thinks she could live like this forever.

“What?” Emily cracks one eye open, her smile a little ragged. Lindsey doesn’t answer, just reaches out to brush a few grains of sand off the tip of her nose. 

Emily tips her chin up a little awkwardly to kiss her fingertips, then reaches up and grabs at Lindsey’s hand, dragging it down between the two of them.

“Nothing.” Lindsey smiles and the warmth of it all — of Emily’s fingers between her own and the sun drying out her swimsuit and her friends’ laughter filling in the quiet — threatens to drown her. “Just trying to remember this all.”

**Author's Note:**

> thought be my mistake was gonna be a one-shot of a story but I got this idea in my head and thought I'd try to write it and now I guess this is a series! came out super soft and like more of a friend-fic with Lindsey and Kelley than I was expecting, but oh well!


End file.
